Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms Preview

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms is the upcoming sequel to a game you've probably never heard of (Kult: Heretic Kingdoms) and, given that, it's looking surprisingly good.

Steam's Early Access Program is both beautiful and dangerous, a bit like a tiger wearing lipstick. There are so many projects looking to take your money and not deliver, whether it's vapourware that never gets finished, or a project whose lofty ideals never pay off due to over-ambition. Shadows, however, is one of those few golden nuggets hidden away that looks like a pretty safe bet to come to fruition.

That's a bold statement by the way, given its status as a pre-alpha release and a game that is largely unfinished. Nevertheless, the small amount of content currently available is infinitely more playable than most beta releases, and more enjoyable than many complete games.

Shadows begins with a mysterious hooded man, voiced by Tom 'The fourth Doctor’' Baker no less, summoning forth an evil, soul consuming demon from some dark abyss. Oh, by the way, that vicious, nefarious demonic force is your main playable character, the aptly named Devourer.

The hooded man explains to you that he has summoned you to deal with forces that threaten the land, and guides you towards completion of your first task: the acquisition of a physical form. Given that you have been summoned forth within a tomb, it's not long before you get the opportunity, as you come across the resting places of not one, but three deceased adventurers.

Here we are introduced to the full extent of the Devourer's powers, as the entity has the ability to absorb the soul of a fallen warrior and resurrect their form in the physical plane, creating an agent to represent himself outside the spirit realm.

The choices available fall into the three standard RPG archetypes, Kalig the Bandit King (warrior), Jasker the Wild Boar (archer) and Evia the Daughter of Fire (mage). While the Devourer appears to be capable of all three types of combat styles in his natural form, he starts with melee as default (at least in the Early Access version). The mage character is, as-yet, unavailable, so the archer seemed the best choice to explore a little variation in combat styles.

This is where things get interesting. To an observer, Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms could easily be mistaken for a low budget Diablo clone. It's an isometric action-RPG with emphasis on mouse control and hotkey ability usage. However, the Devourer's abilities give him access to up to three physical puppets, plus his own form, which can be switched between at will, opening up more tactical options.

Not only this, but the Devourer and his more corporeal companions exist on two separate planes: the physical plane and the shadow realm. These overlapping realms are each very distinct, containing different enemies and obstacles, and navigating an area successfully involves switching between the two planes.

 

The ability to switch between the physical plane and the shadow realm brings a layer of depth to matters. It can be used tactically in combat to escape dangerous enemies, to bypass traps and obstacles, and it encourages exploration by providing two distinct areas to investigate; each with with their own treasures, enemies and NPC's.

It also adds aesthetic variation, as the mundane and spiritual are depicted in vastly different, and contrasting, art styles.

The reference to the Devourer's physical companions as 'puppets' may be a little unfair, as they (or at the very least, the first character selected) have their own distinct personalities and motives. Jasker initially rejected the Devourer's control, but agreed to work with it on the condition that he be free to pursue his own tasks.

There is also periodic dialogue between the Devourer and his puppet, which serves to add some flavour and highlight their differing views and values.

As enjoyable as Shadows is, there is clearly a lot of work yet to be done. With the exception of the hooded man/narrator, no recorded dialog has been added to the game and everything is text only. Given the number of NPCs it may not necessarily be the case that everyone is voice-acted, but having the Devourer and his primary puppet fleshed out with spoken dialog would seem important; especially since they converse with the hooded man, and the current one-sided conversations are a little jarring.

As well as voice acting, there are noticeable missing sound effects, and other expected alpha-stage omissions, such as gaps in the skill trees, a lack of loot variation and the missing starting character. Finally, only the first chapter of the game is available to play, so there is clearly much work to put the title.

Despite the list of omissions being almost as long as the list of features, Shadows still manages to impress even in its infant build. The action is entertaining, the characters three-dimensional and the idea of multiple player characters and dual realms opens the door to a lot of exciting possibilities. All things considered, the final form of Shadows is looking pretty tantalising, and is something this writer is very much looking forward to playing.